Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show
Date: Feb 19, 2025
I was pulled over at the gate for a random anti-terrorism check. Which is excuse number 50 for being late for Jane Grover, the weekly space news and variety show. I’m your host, Marty Smith, and I’m joined by Mr. History, Eric Barat.
I’m the one that called the cops to pull you over. You’re late for that. Yeah, you probably were.
Anna’s back in the house. We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates pertinent to all guardians and to the other lesser branches as well. So take your seats, get them formed, and have a laugh as we present late for Jane Grover.
Thank you so much. I love you. Anna, especially, it’s good to have you back.
It was nice. It was cold, but it was nice. It was a good visit.
Austin’s really pretty. Yeah, it’s beautiful, right? But you can’t drive anywhere in it, right? It’s worse in New York, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s pretty tight. Yeah, it gets congested, but not as bad as New York.
Did you go see any sites, or have you been there before? I’ve been there before. Still have the cobblestone roads, right? A lot of the cobblestones in the city. Yeah, it’s really cool.
I remember we went there, god, 30 years ago, and went to the Bull and Finch, you know, the Cheers Bar. Yeah, so did I. It didn’t look like it on the inside, obviously, but the outside was all there, so that was cool. I went to Paul Revere’s house, toured his house.
Did you? And you know, if you know that history, Paul Revere didn’t even ride that far. It was the other guy who really made the big ride. Paul Revere got captured, and then I saw the Old North Church.
Oh yeah, what a fight. Yeah, baby. Cool.
So I was talking about the Rams, because whatever reason this last week, I don’t know what it was, but they had, I got stopped at the gate by a senior mass sergeant, so he was out there doing his, I’m with you troops, let me check IDs for 15 minutes, so the seniors could say he checked IDs. And this guy, yeah, right, right. And this guy was like, take your glasses off so I can see the shape of your face.
Okay, roll down your back window. Okay, all right. And this was last week, and they had a delayed start, but the delayed start when I left was nine o’clock, and then they changed it that morning to nine thirty.
So that guy was there at nine o’clock, and he’s like, do you know what the delayed start was? I was like, yeah, it was nine o’clock, and he goes, no, it was nine thirty. Next time show up at the right time. I was like, when did they change it? And he couldn’t answer it, because they do all their stupid notification out on Facebook.
So, yeah, the snow line is to hit or miss whether that’s updated. But Facebook, Facebook, why don’t they have a notam or something like that that goes out, something more official than Facebook? Or tiktok? It’s not on the news. I don’t know, I didn’t watch the news.
You gotta watch 20 minutes to get, oh, Buckley’s delayed start. You know, it’s like, yeah, you know, I haven’t. It’s on the scroll on the news channels.
It’ll scroll. But I haven’t watched local news in forever. So you can download an app and get all local news and read through it.
We might say, Marty, reach next time I’m going to go on and go, hey, what does the Buckley app say? I should show up. No, a news app. I don’t go get a news app for just three times a year.
We’ve already used up, you know, we’ve already used up the snow closure. So anyway, good to have you here. Jake’s Jake’s on assignment.
I like it. I think. Did you see one’s Instagram post where he’s cutting hair? I did for a free haircut.
If I had hair one, I’d put you to work, buddy. He probably do your beard. I bet you probably do that.
It’s looking good, man. I mean, it’s pure white. That is that is really well done.
You know, it’s a little wild. No, see, I have to calm mine down because my hair won’t lay correctly. You know, it just it’s why he wants a little frickin.
I like the beard. I do like the beard. I like she looked good.
You look like a team who had older than dirt is what it is. All right, stop pitting on Eric. It’s a bro.
Yeah, that’s right. It’s several years. We’re in our third year of podcast marriage here.
So that’s amazing, man. But we got a new work life and she’s back. So it’s true.
Yes. It’s a pod life. Where’s your paperwork? Well, let’s get to the news and let’s do a space story.
Let’s get the space story out of the way. This one is not a great one. It’s not a great one for NASA, that’s for sure.
So from space dot com, you guys know about the Artemis program? Well, there are risks with the the current Artemis three moon landing plan may be too high. A NASA safety group says so even NASA came out and said, we might be spending too much money on this thing. Artemis has been kind of under the radar, I think, because it was NASA’s plan to use Artemis to go back to the moon and then like go beyond like go to Mars or something like that.
So isn’t that called like interplanetary or something like that? I think so. They were supposed to go to the moon and then set something up on the moon, like a refueling joint or something like that. And then the further missions were supposed to go beyond that.
But they’re so behind and they’re so expensive. So now they’re like, I’m not sure if we’re going to make this. So this is the fall under the NASA fall under the federal purview.
Is that a federal? Oh, yeah. Federal agents. OK, absolutely.
So it’s going to be looked up for money. Maybe they’re calling it early and they’re like, he’s going to scrutinize, shop the heads off. No way we make it.
We might even leave a few logs. Yeah. Goodbye.
Well, the annual report from the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, better known as ASAP, has been released and has both praise for NASA, but also underscores a number of cautionary woes, including the space agency’s undertaking of the Artemis Back to the Moon with humans campaign. They got to throw humans in there. Sounds a little dumb, right? Back to the moon with humans.
Or laws. That’s the next movie. Hard for them to spit in that globe.
Globe. That’s true. Yeah.
Yeah, that’s a big suit. Maybe I have to get a new suit. Of note, this report points to significant safety observations of both the agency’s Moon to Mars program and the current International Space Station operations in low Earth orbit.
Let’s who who said this. The report explains a particular concern are the risks surrounding the development, integration and execution of the Artemis campaign. NASA’s mandate for deep space exploration of Mars and beyond is supremely challenge, challenging and fraught with uncertainty.
So as for the first human return to the Moon, Artemis three is planned as a crewed surface landing and exploration of the lunar southern pole region in mid 2027. I think it’s going to look just like the southern pole. Am I right? Not like you’re going to find buildings on the north end.
I mean, the poles aren’t like the dark side of the Moon, right? Hasn’t China already gone to the dark side of the Moon? I think they had a mission. Yeah, they lined it. Yeah, that’s right.
So they’re already way ahead. And we’re like, well, we’re going to the south pole. What do you think of that? All right.
You know, you can only walk and hit golf balls on the Moon. So many damn times. But I’m not sure what we’re getting out of that.
Let’s see. Also spotlighted in the report is the Boeing Starliner crewed flight test. While the Starliner thruster issues received considerable attention, the panel had previously noted other Starliner issues that require resolution prior to certification such as a battery redesign plan and ongoing work to strengthen the landing airbag backing panel to increase operational flexibility.
So they come down, they blow that big airbag out. They got parachutes, but it’s just like a big boy. It’s like a Benny Hill thing, you know, that even greater challenges underscored in the ASAP report to persistent budget uncertainty stemming from Congress’s failure to provide timely and definitive appropriations.
Given the likelihood that Congress will not provide timely budgetary clarity, NASA must be candid about the consequences of operating within this uncertainty. Congress and other stakeholders must also understand the negative impacts this uncertainty has on NASA’s ability to execute missions safely and effectively. So I put this together.
I actually copied it off of Wikipedia, but here’s the history of NASA’s Artemis program. It started in 2017. Artemis 1 was the first flight of the Artemis program, which was launched on November 16, 2022.
This uncrewed mission tested the Orion spacecraft and the space launch system. So that’s how they went up, like they were the shuttle. They had the big tank and they had the two boosters.
They used that in 2022 to go up. Artemis 2, there’s five flights here planned. Artemis 2 would have been the first or is scheduled to be the first crewed flight of the Artemis program scheduled for April 2026.
This mission will take humans further into space than ever before. I don’t, I don’t know what that means. Maybe the South Pole.
I don’t know. Is that farther than the dark side? I don’t know. Artemis 3, no planned launch yet.
But we’re going to do it. But it does say now, look at when this was written. It does say this mission will include the first woman and first person of color to walk on the moon.
So that’s always, they already got two two seats reserved. But then they’ll be like, oh yeah, that violates the executive order. So that’s out.
I don’t understand the need for diversity on the moon. Is someone watching? I don’t know. I mean, if it happens naturally, okay, but why do we have to highlight it first? Yeah, just take the best person, right? Especially with stuff like this.
This isn’t bus driving or something like that. Artemis 4, that mission will establish a lunar space station and land two more astronauts on the moon. And Artemis 5, this mission will add another module to the lunar space station and land a third crew on the moon.
All right, now I find that interesting because I’m trying to think about the purposes that that moon station could actually have or do. That’s kind of interesting. Well, I mean, you know, I agree, but it seems kind of confusing when they’re like, oh, Artemis has gone to the moon and then we’ll go to Mars.
Okay, but our first five missions are just going to be to the moon. And then we’ll see where we are money wise after that. And maybe just abandon it all and leave a bunch of junk up on it.
Yeah, and everything going to Mars is going to be unmanned. You can’t have a person. Right.
And let’s say improve something with engine technology and all that other stuff. Yeah, yeah, we can’t even get to the moon or actually cryo We can’t get to the moon. We can’t send anybody to Mars.
Yeah, I know. I know. So that’s why they think Artemis is not going to make it.
They don’t think it’s going to make it, you know, especially with SpaceX and now, you know, Blue Origin’s out there. God, there’s a lot of companies out there. There was one that launched today just from New Zealand.
I can’t. And they’re doing it better than NASA. Yeah, they’re doing more efficiently.
That’s for sure. So we’ll see. I don’t know.
It sounds like bad news. I need a bigger bang for the dollar. Bigger bang for the dollar.
More efficient one. Yeah. Okay.
Let’s talk about some real life bravery guys. Right. Guys who are really doing a mission.
I don’t remember when I had I was contacted by the Coast Guard Academy way back when to try to come out there and go to their college. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about boats.
I know. Now that I know, I mean, like I would have seen action almost like every day in the Coast Guard compared to what I saw in the Army. So here’s some guys up in Alaska.
Always seems like we have a good story for these guys up in Alaska. Right. The last final frontier, man.
Well, yeah. Yeah. And it still remains that way.
Alaska rescue units had a hell of a week. Three planes, two countries and one stuck helicopter all in one week. So the winners in Alaska are typically slower than warmer months for the military rescue team station there.
The state’s flyers pulled off a rescue grand slam, the article says in late January, four responses to four different kinds of missions. The final word. All right.
It’s going to be a hell of a Christmas party. The frantic string of missions began on January 26th when the air guards rescue units were dispatched to Pharaoh, Canada, where an ultralight plane had crashed. The 176th home at Joint Base Elmendorf Richardson is about 250 miles from the Canadian border and Farrell sits another 250 miles inside the Yukon territory.
What can’t it do without us being up there? Yeah, I’d be trouble. Yeah, I know. So the guards 210th Rescue Squadron launched an H-860 helicopter, a Black Hawk modified for rescue with long range gas tanks and a hoist carrying two para rescue specialists from the 212th RQS.
I guess that’s Rescue Squadron, an HC-130 tanker from the 211th Rescue Squadron escorted the helicopter as a flu for air to air refueling. So what’s going 500 miles? 500 miles to get these guys. The helicopter reached the craft site and picked up both survivors then flew to Pharaoh.
After returning the survivors over to Canadian authorities, the crew found that the H-860 had developed mechanical issues, serious enough to ground it until maintenance could be performed. So these guys are like, hey, let’s fly out there real quick. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.
And then they get halfway back and it breaks down. Least it wasn’t on the space station. Oh god, miserable.
Yeah, absolutely miserable. The life threatening action. Yeah.
So then that was on the 26th and four days later on January 30th, an H-860 with PJs on board for routine training picked up a call from a Piper Super Cub that was suffering engine trouble about 20 miles west of Anchorage. The crew spotted the plane safely on the ground, landed nearby for the PJs to investigate. The pilot was still troubleshooting the aircraft to see if it was air worthy, said Alaska Air National Guard Major Tyler Seibold.
When he realized it wasn’t, he requested a ride. So they landed. He’s like, yeah, can you give me a ride back? And they did.
So that’s rescue number two, right? Then the next day, January 31st, a call came in from Alaska state troopers of a snowboard or injured in an avalanche at turn again, turn again pass a popular back country skiing area about 40 miles southeast of Anchorage. Seibold said we took out pretty quick, got to the site. Unfortunately, a good Samaritans on site and on snow machines that already put player prepared an LZ that the PJs could hoist into and put their litter down.
The PJs found the snowboarder hypothermic, but not critically as they flew toward Anchorage. So on their way, taking the snowboarder back, they got a second call. They got reports of an aircraft sinking through the ice about 40 or 50 miles from where the helicopter was.
So they dropped off the snowboarder at the hospital. They came back to refuel. The PJs got dry suits and pack rafts in case they had to go into open water.
They flew back back in the air. The helicopter pilot spoke with pilots of civilian tour helicopters who were over the crash site. The plane was in the water, but no survivors were visible.
Searching the area, they found that four people on board had decided to hike out. So maybe it broke down on the ice. They got out and then a plane broke through the ice, I guess.
It was cracking when they were up. Yeah, it could be. Yeah, yeah.
Once they got there, they saw four people walking about four miles from the aircraft. So they hoisted the PJ down, asked them if they were on the plane, sinking into the ice, and they said yes. The PJs treated all four for different severities of hypothermia from mild to severe before hoisting them into the helicopter return in Anchorage.
So that was all four, but they still have that broken helicopter back in Canada. So here’s what they did to get the helicopter back out of Pharaoh. They sent both army and air guard units along with an active duty plane.
A C-17 from the Air Guards 144th Airlift Squadron delivered air crew mechanics to the closest major runway at White Horse, Canada. An Alaska Army Guard CH-47 Chinook, I got a picture of this one. This one, that’s cool looking, isn’t it? There’s really skis on the slide.
Yeah, the Chinook flew from Jaber to Pharaoh to deliver a load of necessary parts. And finally, an active duty C-12 Huron from the 517th Airlift Squadron, the military version of an 8-passenger Beechcraft plane ferry people and supplies for the mission. Ultimately, they couldn’t fix a helicopter and they put it on the C-17 and flew it back.
What’s amazing about the Coast Guard is the fact that one week you’re dead bored out of your there’s not a thing happening. And then the next minute, you go from zero to 60, you’re flying with your hair on fire. And oh my god, now it’s happening everywhere.
Four missions in five days or whatever. Five days, crazy. So good on those guys, man.
That’s pretty badass. Whenever you hear about the Coast Guard or the National Guard up there in Alaska, god damn, man. Those guys are really busy.
Yeah, they really know when they’re stuck. Go in, go poop, go back out. Yeah, right, right.
For 48 hours and then you can go home. Take care of business, man. I’m like, I got chili on the stove, man.
My cat. Okay, so that’s a good, that’s a feel good one. I got one that’s going to beef fuddle you.
All right. Beef fuddle me. Beef fuddle you.
So from task and purpose, over $151 million were taken from soldiers paychecks for food costs and were spent elsewhere by the army. So friend of the show, Ken Ramos callsight and ice over at army WTF moments talked about this last night on his podcast and I feel that we should bring this to light too. So this is kind of long and I apologize for it, but when you hear the numbers, you will be amazed.
I’m already amazed that well, sure. We’ve done enough of these types of stories here. Just the army is repurposing more than half of the money it collects from junior and missus soldiers for food.
According to data reviewed by military.com, the numbers suggest a large portion of those funds are not going toward feeding soldiers. A diversion of resources coming at a time when troops increasingly struggle to find nutrition, nutritious food on base. The money is collected in what amounts to a tax on troops taken from their BAS or basic allowance for subsistence payments.
Yeah, that’s a tough one. Roughly $460 per month that is automatically deducted from the paychecks of service members who live in barracks and is attended to help cover food costs. For junior enlisted troops who earn about $30,000 annually, the cost could be significant.
2024 financial records provided by the service from 11 of the army’s largest bases show that more than $151 million of $225 million collected from soldiers was not spent on food. Given that the army operates 104 garrisons, the true amount of unspent funds is likely far higher. It’s just an army public affairs office put out a statement that said it’s just returned to the big pool of army funds and it’s used someplace else.
That’s a bunch of crap. Now listen to this. At Fort Stewart, Georgia, for example, soldiers contributed $17 million but the base spent just $2.1 million on their dining hall, redirecting 87% of the funds.
Scofield Barracks in Hawaii collected $14.5 million but used only $35 million, meaning 63% of the money, was used elsewhere. All the two bases left more than half of the money for food unspent. Why are they enlisted? Because they’re pulling off of that B.A.S. Yeah, I guess it’s the ones who are living on base.
Okay. Well, you know that stuff better than we do, right? From your former career field. I was in finance.
You were closer to finance than we were. Yeah, but B.A.S. was given to you for, well, for food, but if you lived off base. But that was back in the day when they had the trial halls.
So if you lived on base, you just went to the trial hall. If you lived off base, then you would get B.A.S. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.
And then you had to pay full price when you went to the dining hall for a meal, if you were at work. Yeah, because we used to be able to go. The meal cards, right? If you had a meal card, you were good.
Yeah. If not, yeah, you had to pay the full thing. And if you created fraud and married somebody and just lived off base with them, they got.
Oh, the dual marriage. Yeah. I remember when they used to check.
They used to adjust your B.A.S. when you got married because you had to bring the lease in. And they would be like, oh, you’re both living together that lease. So you’re not getting your full B.A.S. That sucks.
It’s unclear what specifically the additional funds taken from soldiers are being spent on, but they do not appear to be going toward feeding soldiers. Major expenses such as dining hall infrastructure and food service worker salaries come from separate funding sources. And when pressed repeatedly by Military.com, army officials declined to provide additional financial data.
Of course not. In 2023, Military.com reported that Fort Cavazos, Texas, formerly Fort Hood, the Army’s most extensive base was barely able to keep its food services running for much of that summer, with only two of its 10 dining facilities open, leaving soldiers struggling to find meals. See, that’s so wrong, man.
In November last year, the publication reported pervasive food shortages at Fort Carson, Colorado. Soldiers were fed meals that were just a slice of toast and lima beans troops told Military.com and they took a picture of it. That was their dinner.
Unbelievable. What is that? That’s what they serve, lima beans and toast. Here you go.
I’d have thrown that shit on the tree. What are you going to do? It’s like, I guess that’s all we get. I suppose lima beans.
It’s almost like prisoner of war food. Oh, man. Talk about living on one substance, man.
It says the Army has a nutrition policy on what is supposed to feed soldiers, though it’s rarely followed and in some cases outright ignored. The service has investigated or invested in so-called kiosks, like I think the sandwich machines and stuff like that, which are cheap alternatives to major dining facilities. Instead of cooked meals, soldiers have access to grab and go snacks and prepackage sandwiches akin to the quality of prepared meals at a gas station.
Yeah, that sounds healthy for our soldiers. Right. I would have never thought in a million years that a box nasty or a box lunch would be better than our meal at the dining facility.
Oh, yeah. Sure, sure. Right.
Military.com reviewed the menus at those kiosks and found that it’s virtually impossible for soldiers to stay within healthy nutrition guidelines, with most offerings being heavy in sugar and low in protein. The service’s previous top enlisted leader, Sergeant Major of the Army, Michael Grinston, sought to heavily invest in healthy food, seeking to feed soldiers more like professional athletes, and dramatically expand meal options to include fresh protein shakes. But those efforts never came to fruition after getting snagged in bureaucratic difficulties.
Yeah, that was a great idea, right? Yeah, absolutely. Put the best food. Yes, yes.
Army officials declined to answer detailed or even broad questions about how so much money is diverted and how budgets for food are decided. The service also declined to make any senior officials available for the record for interviews. Of course not, right? In the past, service officials have pointed to a lack of attendance at Army dining facilities saying resources are continually stripped because of a perception of dwindling interest.
Reports from service members frequently described undercooked meat, unseasoned meals, a lack of fresh ingredients, and unhealthy menu options. The substandard and sometimes dangerous food in turn leads to fewer soldiers using the facilities, a downward spiral that results in even less money being spent on meals. So I remember when they closed the Buckley Dining Facility because they were like, oh, we don’t have enough people using it.
Yeah, that was it. And they’re like, cut. And that was all during BRAC.
That was so they could make. And I was like, are you just giving vouchers for what are you doing now? You got two dorms built here and you shut the dining the dining facility down. So they don’t every time they said that.
Yeah, that’s right. As every time they they said that we’re shutting it down due to lack of use. I don’t believe that.
People are always in there every time, mostly back to my day. That thing was always being used. Well, it’s true.
It does depend. And Buckley is almost every career field on Buckley is shift work. Right.
Yeah. So, yes, you don’t have to keep open from 10 to 12, but you better be open at six. You better be open around three.
Any better be open around 11 at night. Yeah. Right.
Yeah. So. But if they’re just like, well, we’re open eight to five and we don’t get that many people coming in here.
Well, yeah, you know, masses because they’re all. You’re all sleeping. So stupid, man.
Especially if you take Buckley or Shriever, Pete’s better because Pete has more services on it. But to go out and get some food for your crew means you got to make that crazy walk, get your car, go off base, go drive somewhere. That’s that’s an hour and a half round trip.
If the dining facility would be like, hey, we want to put these box, you know, put these in box lunches or box meals or something like that. That’d be awesome. And you pay seven bucks for him or something like that.
That’d be great. The inflight kitchen was the one that was always doing the box meals for all the flight crews. Yeah.
Yeah. So you would you. Right.
For cops, each ship would have an order that would go in at the beginning of the shift. Oh, perfect. The inflight kitchen.
Yeah. We say we need 24 box meals, ham, this one, turkey and divvy up. Right.
So. So maybe, uh, maybe instead of a seat for Carson, money collected from soldiers, 22 million money spent on food, 5 million. So maybe somewhere in that 17 million, that dining facility could take some downtime with nobody coming in, but you’re still ready to go.
I think you could, uh, make that work. Yeah. Uh, I’d like to see what the cost, you know, the cost effectiveness of the 2 million or the 5 million that was being utilized for the food.
Go ahead. Go. No, go.
I don’t realize how much of a retention and a recruiting benefit that would be. When every, every man’s heart wants to eat. True.
Right. Yeah. What does that mean? Every, a true place to the heart or something? A way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.
Yeah, through his stomach. Yeah. Well, um, and that was what was great.
At least the Shriver when you could go at night on night shifts and they’d have a short order grill or whatever they had there. That was, that was wonderful. Uh, Pete had a good one.
Uh, Vandenberg had a great one. Um, and that’s, and that’s what, uh, all the army guys, and he was talking about this on his podcast on WTF moments or army WTF moments last night was why is the air force figure this out? You know, how does the air force do that? Well, the air force contracts, all that stuff. Right.
And, uh, and hopefully they’re using all the money budgeted for it. Uh, hopefully Buckley, that would be helpful. Buckley didn’t they, they’ve totally pitched it.
Right. So there are those instances where the air force is not taking care of the people either, but, uh, um, not on par like the army. And you would think coming out of that recruiting crisis, let’s make everything really okay for these guys.
Would you? Right. So snacks and good food. Yeah.
Just some food. I mean, uh, the, the kiosk that was doomed to fail from the get go. And they’re like, I hate it when they do that.
And they’re like, well, the troops voted for this. It’s like, why did you even let them vote? They’re going to dumb vote all the time. Yeah.
So why they want to keep the money. They want to keep the money that it costs to go into that machine. Yeah.
Yeah. You’re probably right. You know, I mean, you go to Buckley now and you go over to the BX and they got food trucks out there.
Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, okay, that’s fine.
But the food trucks out there, but I don’t want to pay the food truck price. If I’ve enlisted, I mean, yes, give me a meal card with that food truck and I’d be like, I’ll do that. So anyway, yeah, that’s, that’s the army side.
I’m glad they exposed it. Will something happen? I don’t know. Maybe when does starts looking at that shit.
I don’t know how a, a base commander or somebody at that level can just, I mean, they’ve got to have line items in the budget, right? Can they just take, I’ll just take this 10 million out of dining and I’ll just move it over to ammunition. They can’t do that, right? Well, I think the secretary of defense, especially in times of critical emergencies, you know, wartime situations can dictate where his money goes. I think he controls his budget.
Okay. Yeah. Fair enough.
Fair enough. Is it O and M money? Cause O and M, O and M is O and M and you can move it. Yeah.
Like the pay. What was the other class of money that’s hard coded? You can’t touch those. Those, those funds are meant for whatever they were.
What’s that other class called? You can’t remember. O and M and one other. Yeah.
Because they always talked about and that goes back to end of year spending that we always talked about too. Oh yeah. End of year spending.
Oh, was it RPA? I thought RPA was pay, was a type of pay. Yeah. But you could mix, you couldn’t mix those.
Oh, you couldn’t mix them. Yeah. That’s right.
They were different pots. But O and M was O and M and then you have the admin offices that are just buying a million pins to spend their O and M budget. And here’s freaking the army with a piece of toast and two glasses of milk.
Come on. Yeah. We got you a bunch of stress balls.
End of year money. Operations and maintenance was O and M. Yeah. And there was still another one that we’re, we’re, we’re not talking about.
Yeah. I, one of them was real slushy. I thought well, Eric will find it.
Eric usually finds it. Yeah. R, D, T and E, which is research development tests and evaluation efforts, but it had a different acronym.
Yeah. We never saw that down there. Yeah.
You’re way off Eric. You’re way off. Okay.
I quit. O and M was the only one I remember. You did great.
You did good. You remembered O and M. So, you know, you know, Shane Gillis, have you seen Shane Gillis’ comedy? You should watch. I thought we sent you Shane Gillis.
He, he’s funny. He has a bit where he talks bad about his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend was a Navy SEAL. And then he came along and he’s like, that sucks.
That’s, that’s the worst previous boyfriend you could ever have. Right. So he tries to make up shit talk in Navy SEALs.
He’s trying to put them down. Right. It’s a, it’s a pretty funny bit.
However, that reminded me of this next story from task and purpose again. Uh, Navy SEAL candidates often swim in water with high levels of fecal matter. They have to condition themselves.
Oh, I guess so. Maybe you never know. If you think of third world countries and where they’re going in and out.
But they’re not trying to like live off the water. They’re just forcing them into the, the sewers, which were previously the ocean, uh, where, where the city has banned people from swimming, but they’re making these guys go. Well, yes, Navy SEALs with a bad digestive track now.
A recent report from the defense department inspector general’s office found that Navy SEAL candidates often conducted water training exercises off Naval amphibious based Coronado, California. Even when local beaches were closed due to high levels of fecal indicator bacteria, a telltale sign of fecal matter. Uh, Navy SEAL candidates exposure, Navy SEAL candidate exposure to contaminated water occurred because Navy special warfare command did not follow San Diego County’s beach and Bay water quality programs, beach closer postings, which is what the IG said.
Uh, the IG report noted that the Navy has documented 1,168 cases of acute gastrointestinal illness among say Navy SEAL and special warfare combat crewmen candidates who trained at Naval Air Base Coronado between January, 2019 and May, 2023. What did you say? It’s a cute as if it’ll go away. It’ll be all right.
No, like, okay. So say we groom. I get it.
I get it. No one wants to swim and people matter to water. Okay.
But they are Navy SEALs and they have like, I’m actually being realistic here. They can’t pick and choose what kind of water they’re going to swing in and like fair enough. That’s fair.
Yeah. Like, or somebody, I don’t know. That’s what I, I agree.
That’s fair. And, uh, but it’s just, I don’t know, but at the same time, but it’s still be like in the field. They may go, Oh, let’s, uh, let’s find another route.
Yeah. This is training, by the way, we’re, we’re training. I know they’re candidates, but I was just thinking like your child, when there’s, when you find out the other child has like smallpox or something, you’re like, give me a child next to the other child.
Say they have to get conditioned, toughen them up. Let him get some immunity to that smallpox. I think it was Jock Cousteau before he died that actually said, that actually said the oceans of the world are the toilets of the world.
Really? You think it was Jock Cousteau said that? I’ve heard that. Yeah. I believe he was.
I believe that’s why the oceans was salty. But I did tell you when we went over to cutter and the plane broke down and we were, uh, we stopped in Italy for 24 hours. So a bunch of us ran down as like, let’s go see Venice, you know, let’s, let’s try our luck with the train system, which we couldn’t read a word of.
See if we can get down to Venice, walk around for a few hours and come back. And you go down to the canals on Venice. Oh, they’re nasty.
Oh, it was disgusting. Yes. And you go off like the, you know, they have the, the tourist canals with the gondolas and all those guys, but didn’t realize that those canals are just there.
Um, they’re for merchants. The people, people live right next to the canals and they’re just dumping shit in the canals. Like it’s so nasty.
Yeah. This is gross. If you ever fell out of that gondola, you’d be worse than these Navy seals.
Could you imagine if you’re trying to get into the gondola and you fall and you’re like, Oh, pull your leg out of the water. It has got like the steam from the movies as it’s eating away the clothes. He’s like, Oh, bad day.
Yeah. It’s very nasty. So, uh, DOD, ID found that levels of enter and tarot cocas.
I can’t pronounce this word. And tarot cocas bacteria. It’s coca.
Intestinal tracks of warm blooded animals and indicate possible fecal mallet contamination exceeded state limits in 76% of tests conducted on samples taken from the beach north of Coronado and 75% of the samples taken from the beach south of the base between February and September, 2024. But these instructors like get in that water. It’s going through a filter of your skin before it gets into your body.
That’s if you don’t swallow it. You see those sit ups with the log and they have a suit on. No, they do not.
They just have their BDUs. And they’re yelling and screaming and choking because the water’s going to a person who was born and raised in San Angelo, Texas. And I used to be swimming in, uh, OC Fisher.
And there’s a cow patty. We would play with it. Okay.
Well, now we understand the process. I didn’t die. Well, true.
I mean, that’s why my eyes are brown. I don’t know. We figured it out.
You’re only five four and your eyes are brown. Maybe that swimming did affect you after swimming with cow patties. Yeah, it was fun.
So basically, yeah, they were ignoring the surf warnings and the instructors are making them get in. Anyway, um, DOG is, this is a great part of this. Do DIG recommended that naval space special warfare command Institute of policy to monitor water quality and to relocate reschedule cancer water training when bacteria levels are higher than state health limits.
So you know what they said in response? They said, yes, we vowed to implement both of these recommendations by December 31st. Hopefully somebody forgets about it. That’s for taking my, that’s for taking my y’all money.
You’re not going to be hungry after you do the surf. Trust me, you’ll be okay. Guys, you’ll be all right.
I just pretty nasty to think about that. And now, and now you know, oh, I got to make it through this training. I’m probably going to get some severe intestinal thing, but I’ve got to push through that too.
Yeah, man. Yeah. But according to honesty, you may be swimming in a river of shit somewhere.
And it’s true. And you make it, you may get this, you make it something you’re stuck in the Philippines. Is it, is it fair to say we probably have the best water in the world overall, even, you know, older houses and shit, but we’ve got to have the best water, right? I mean, in general, right? I mean, I’m sure there’s some mountain towns that have much better water than, you know, we do or something like that stuff.
Even the old is better than what most countries have. Even the old is better than the never even thought about this. Yeah.
Yeah. Right. Right.
I don’t know. That’s good. That’s got to be tough.
It’s like getting that surf and I’m like, Hey, Sarge, what if I get bacteria in my colon? And he was like, you don’t have something else in your colon. If you don’t get in the water. Oh my goodness.
Why’d you quit training young man? Well, sir, things were floating in the water that I didn’t necessarily want to put in my mouth. So I quit. Yeah.
Okay. I get that. I get that.
So, uh, Eric, what do you got for history for tonight? Well, it certainly isn’t bacteria in the water. So we’re, we can move on to something good here. I like the cow patties in the river that, you know, no, it’s in the, in the lake, in the actual lake because they allow the livestock to wander where they did back in the day.
I don’t know, but yeah, they, and I, I know I got a dysentery at some point because I was really sick. Oh, I was, I had to been like 10 and I was so sick. Oh, my mom kept telling me I had the stomach flu.
Well, something, right? We could have been a Navy seal with that kind of gut now. Look at, look how tough you are now. Oh, it doesn’t work that way.
You know, let me give you a little, let me give you a little context about tonight’s history so we can move on from this field. Shortly after its attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 41, Japan gained control much of Southeast Asia and the central Pacific. They controlled extended past Burma down to the Dutch East Indies, now Malaysia, New Guinea, Wake Island.
So they were spreading, right? Right. So tonight’s history is concerning the start of their downfall. Midway.
Iwo Jima. Really? I thought, oh, okay. Certainly Midway was the first time that we won a significant battle.
Yeah, we put a hurt. Right. Yep.
Iwo led to the island hopping campaign that started putting them all the way back to the mainland, right? So World War II conflict between the States and the Empire of Japan. The United States mounted an amphibious invasion of the island of Iwo Jima as part of the Pacific campaign against Japan. A costly victory for the United States battle was one of the bloodiest in history of the United States Marine Corps was cited as proof of the Japanese military willingness to fight to the last man.
Yeah. Where is that one part? Okay. So we needed Iwo.
It was supposed to last, they thought, three days. They actually thought they could take the island in three days. It ended going, it went from February 19th to 45 down to March 2645.
Oh, damn. So lots of loss. 70,000 US troops.
70,000. Against 18,000. 18,000 of Japanese.
Oh, okay. We didn’t lose 70,000. Not dead, but just part of the battle.
Damn. Right. A lot of people, a lot of people.
So that’s more than we had at Normandy, right? I don’t think we had that, those numbers at Normandy. I don’t know. We have to look that up, but sorry, go ahead.
So here, here were your last numbers. The battle was one of the bloodiest in the Marine Corps history, resulting in nearly 6,800 American and approximately 21,000 Japanese casualties. Damn.
So those were the deaths. 6,800 and 21,000. The Japanese were crazy, you know.
Well, yeah. Yeah. I would love to go see the island as part of a tour group.
You know, you can go to the island, but you have to be part of a tour group. You can’t just fly into Iwo and say, hey, I’m here. Let’s go party.
There was like nothing strategic on the island, I don’t think. I think it was just its position, but other than that, there was nothing strategic on that island. There were some airfields.
I’m looking at a map right now. There’s one, two, three airfields. Yeah.
Well, maybe that’s what it was. There is now. And I don’t think there was one back when they started it.
It was just occupied, heavily occupied. I don’t think it was an airstrip. Because for an airstrip, really? Yeah, there had to be because that was one of the strategic reasons they took it.
But other than that, there was like nothing infrastructure there, just this location. Well, I thought it was Okinawa, Okinawa that had the airstrip that was going to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fair.
But all right, I’m good with that. I know there were two or three. It could be nice.
It’s Google. I’m seeing it now. The island was strategically important for its airfields which could support bombers and fighters.
Okay, fair enough. You’re right. But I know there were two or three islands that were close to by.
Iwo was the battle. Because I remember reading Bush’s biography. And there was like a radio tower on the neighboring Chichijima, the island of Chichijima.
And they were trying to take out that radio tower. And that’s where he got shot down, the senior Bush. That’s where he got shot down and had to be rescued.
Wow. But evil started on the 19th. Wow.
Yep. That was the invasion. 1945, February 19th.
God, good one. Pretty wild. Yeah, that’s a good one.
Yeah. Did they have shitty water there too? Probably. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have Fuji.
No Iceland. It was a place I wouldn’t want to be, I know that much. Wouldn’t And then there’s all these people handing out like smart water and be like, like, what is going on? And then they shoot you in the face or something.
I can’t even picture what you’re saying. It’s ridiculous. It’s like a Walmart reader.
Everybody go out there and start walking. Got a little towel and a gun underneath. Here’s your water, sir.
Suckers falling for the smart water. Glad you’re back, Anna. That’s what we miss you.
So I’m messing up. But I know actually it lasted more than a month. Yeah, that is nuts, man.
I mean, that battle was crazy. That battle was February to March. Yeah, that battle was so fierce.
So they finally said that the island was secure. Yeah. All right.
Over a month. Yeah. And they probably still had Japanese down in the tunnels, like not realizing that they surrendered, you know, coming up.
Oh, man. Did they only have the Marines involved? I think the Army was out there, but I don’t know if they were there for Hilo. There was the first invasion of the Marines.
There was Army, but they led the first landing. The Marines did. I wonder how many divisions they took out there.
And then how do you plan for that? 70,000. They had all of them out there, I think. Right.
It was big. Did any Marines. I’m not even going to ask that because somebody’s going to watch this and go, these guys are military guys.
But I don’t know of any sectors in Europe that the that the Marines had specifically. I don’t know if they were just Pacific. Maybe they had some in Europe, but usually it was the Army and Air Force in Europe.
And then we had Navy Marines with some Army out in the Pacific. So I’m not I’m not sure that’d be a good one to I think that’s accurate. But I don’t want to the battle.
I believe the Battle of Anzio Beach in Italy, I think had Marines. Oh, OK. Well, that makes sense.
That makes sense. But for the majority, what you said, Army Air Corps, Army and Air Corps and European theater and Marines in the Pacific with some Army. It’s crazy that we’re the one country who fought on two fronts like that.
That’s amazing. Good job. Yes.
Yeah. Yes. Good job us.
Who cares a little bit in the future? The casual shitty water. Get your ass in that surf, man. It’s all about conditioning.
Remember what they went through. Well, on that shitty note, let’s call it in depth. All right.
On behalf of all of us here, I’d like to thank you for listening today. Please like, share, subscribe. Let us know how we get the comments and make sure next week that you are not late for changeover.
Oh, I get it. Because of Iran. Wow, that’s true.
Yeah. Because of Iran. Ana was first on to the podcast.
By the way, you need to call him on a random like random anti anti-terrorism measure. I didn’t want to say measure. Random.
I said, shit. And I care. Not random.
Fucking guys, man. I always felt so nervous whenever I went to a camp. Even when you get pulled over, don’t you like get like, I’ll be nervous.
Like the one I was nervous that I saw the dogs. One time I was like, yeah, I know I don’t have it, but who knows what they’re gonna. My car for what? Six months.
Full of cannabis. I bought the vehicle yesterday. I swear I didn’t know.
Yeah. I mean, it’s gonna alert at something and I’m like, I have no idea what’s in the car. I’m pretty sure it’s clean, but I guess not.
That was sparkling out here telling me it’s not. Stay warm everyone and everyone listen and watch it. Thanks for watching and listening and we’ll see you next week.
Bye.